


A Veritable Bastard

by antelucem



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, Fluff, M/M, angry boyfriends talking by a fireside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 01:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2091549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antelucem/pseuds/antelucem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now, when Eren looks at him with a grudging smile, his blood boils in a completely different way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Veritable Bastard

Eren Jaeger is a veritable bastard.

Jean's lost count of the times Eren's insulted him, or threatened to start a fight, or grabbed the front of his T-shirt in a fist. And usually, with Eren, these offenses occur in rapid succession.

Eren's also the first to lose his temper, the first to go off on an angry rampage and punch everything in sight, the first to sneer at Jean when Jean's being the realist shitting on Jaeger's Sunshine and Butterflies and The Blood of All Titans Parade. 

Basically, he's the King Asshole of the Assholes.

But the main reason he's a bastard is because somewhere along the line, Jean managed to fall in love.

He doesn't really know how it happened, just knows that somehow, in between titan guts and midnight strategy talks, Eren began trusting him. And Eren isn't really all that bad—at least he fights for what he believes in—and he's supposed to be Humanity's Last Hope and everything, so yeah, not all that bad.

So now, when Eren looks at Jean with a grudging smile, his blood boils in a completely different way.

He's still a bastard, of course—Eren's face gets murderous whenever he spouts his dumb shit in Jean's face—but sometimes Jean loses himself in the green of his eyes or the exotic patterns that mark his face whenever Jean has to hack him out of his titan form.

And sometimes, like now, when Eren's just sitting on night watch with him, Jean loses himself in the quiet way that Eren links their hands together, like it's nothing. Eren doesn't give a shit about a lot of things, Jean knows, and he doesn't give a shit about what other people think, but heat still rises on Jean's cheeks.

"What're you doing," he mumbles. Everybody's asleep, but they're wide awake, and he feels something dumb spark in him whenever Eren touches him.

Eren pokes at the crackling fire with a stick, snorting when he sees the flush on Jean's cheeks. "Holding hands…with my _boyfriend_."

"Shut up," Jean retorts cleverly, and he almost rips his hand out of Eren's grasp. But he decides against it, because Eren's hands are perpetually soft and warm, not that he would ever tell him that. "I know where these hands have been."

"These are actually a new set," Eren replies thoughtfully, and Jean's heart stutters a little at his words.

Watching Eren regrow limbs is something he'd rather not think about right now, so he shuts his mouth again and falls back into the silence of the night.

"How many did you kill today?" Eren asks. His words are careful, and Jean knows that something's bothering him. Otherwise he wouldn't be staring into the fire for the past thirty minutes, probably would've tried to sleep on duty and get Jean to pick up his slack. He probably would've tried to wheedle his way out of staying up with a couple of kisses, and Jean's face grows hot again at the thought.

"Three," Jean answers, and his voice wavers slightly. "One assist. Sasha got to the bastard before I could have a chance."

Eren nods like it matters, although he's probably killed more titans than Jean will in his lifetime. He pokes at the flames with a small fallen branch, and Jean bumps his shoulder slightly. The stick falls out of Eren's free hand, and he looks at Jean with his mouth open, ready with a tired protest.

"What's wrong?" Jean asks, and Eren's mouth falls shut before he looks back at the fire.

"Nothing," he replies, and Jean wants to kick him in the shin.

So he does.

"What're you doing, asshole?" he asks, and Jean puts a finger to his lips to quiet him. Eren scowls, and darts his tongue out to _lick_ Jean's finger.

Jean grimaces, and wipes his finger on Eren's cloak. "Dude, you're fucking disgusting."

"Not as disgusting as you."

"Nice one."

"Fuck you."

"But seriously, Eren," Jean says, and Eren's shoulders hunch slightly when he hears the change in tone again. "What's wrong?"

"You probably don't want to hear it."

"You idiot, of course I want to hear it," he says, and he remembers that Eren lets some things fester inside of him before they release in a torrent of rage. "Tell me. I wouldn't have asked otherwise."

"Fine," Eren concedes. "I was just thinking today—"

"Fancy that, Eren Jaeger thinking."

"Can it, asshole. Anyway, I was just thinking today, and…titans were once people, weren't they?"

Jean swallows. They haven't quite pinned it down yet, but he thinks that that particular theory is spot on. And he knows that Eren's probably agonized over this particular theory, because ripping the head off of a fifteen meter creature is a lot less rewarding when you're reminded that the creature came from somebody like Connie's mom, or any of the villages left devastated by blood and gore.

So he replies with a "yeah," and watches as something in Eren's face grows tight.

"I'm just tired of killing," Eren says simply, and his grip on Jean's hand tightens. "I'm just tired."

Jean nods.

"Sometimes I wonder what the ocean is like," he continues quietly. "Just this fucking huge body of water, pulling in and pulling out. And I want to be there, I don't want to be here. Just, you know, hearing all that water and feeling that sun on my skin.

"Here the only things that're really good are the people. Mikasa, Armin, Levi, and this fucking asshole over here who wants to know everything that's messing up my mind but fucking blushes when I try to hold his hand."

Jean's eyebrows furrow, and he tries to think of an insult, but all of a sudden Eren's mouth is on his and he can't really think anymore.

And they haven't kissed in a while, so he leans in a bit and closes his eyes.

Eren Jaeger is a veritable bastard, Jean remembers with Eren's mouth soft and perfect and warm against his.

But he's a bastard that Jean might actually kind of really, really love.


End file.
